Sarko’s EU team

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

5/23/07, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:42 PM CET

Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s new president, has filled his key EU posts with some experienced folk who know their way around Brussels. His EU affairs minister is Jean-Pierre Jouyet, who used to be in the private office of European Commission president Jacques Delors and took over as Delors’s chief of staff when Pascal Lamy went off to the stricken French bank Crédit Lyonnais. At the Elysée, Sarkozy has recruited Fabien Raynaud as his chief EU affairs adviser and main diplomatic representative in the negotiations on the new treaty. Raynaud used to be legal affairs counsellor at the French permanent represen-tation. MEP Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin becomes minister for health, youth and sport. Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson will be delighted that Christine Lagarde, who used to vex him as France’s trade minister, can now cause him almost as much trouble as agriculture minister.

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …